Common Talk Weeklyshuang yu zhou kan
issue date

When sea meets music
January 14, 2004
By June Zhou
Photos by Yao Fan

A sculpture enlightening class

Editor's note: The Sea and Music Sculpture Manifest will stay open to public at the Xiamen Bay Park, Xiti, till the Spring Festival holidays. Citizens are welcome to contribute their comments and suggestions on the future locations of these sculptures. After March, the sculptures will be distributed to various locations around the city according to appropriate conditions.

Sea+music =what? People might be taken aback once they learn the answer is sculpture. Yet the seemingly absurd (离奇的）answer has proven a huge success since the Sea and Music Sculpture Manifest of Xiamen kicked off at the Xiamen Bay Park two months ago. To this day, all of the thirty-one sculptures by acclaimed artists from home and abroad have drawn enormous attention at a national level.

Sea and music, the two most significant symbols of Xiamen, have inspired not only the artists who created the sculptures, but also the city and its people who have been famous for appreciating art and creativity. The significance of the manifest resides not only in negating（否定） the meaning of the sculpture proper, but also in affirmation endowed（给予） by each viewer and participant.

The manifest aimed to showcase a big array of sculptures by both local and foreign sculptors. Interestingly, both groups paid momentous （重大的）attention to integrating the human being with the nature, which reflects the artists' deeply rooted consciousness of sustainable development.

Mr Wang Haitao, a lecturer in fine arts from Xiamen University, created Second Horizon made of cobbles of different sizes out from the blue. The sculpture itself, a miniature（微型） sea, has been installed on the sea off Huan Dao Lu, which witnesses sunrise and sundown, tide coming and going. Wang proposed to present a sea within a sea and further indicate a sense of the whirling of life. Conceptive and insightful, the sculpture has sent an unambiguous message: The closer to nature, the more nature returns.

Bard Breiv, the author of "Female Dancer" System for Habitable Spaces, by Ms Lisa Nortonet
"Perception" by Fu Xinmin from Xiamen "Hippopotamus" by Dutch sculptor Tom Claassen

Similarly, artists from non-Chinese cultural backgrounds enshrined（保护） the harmony of nature and mankind devotedly. System for Habitable Spaces, by Ms Lisa Norton from the States, is a brilliant example amongst the twelve sculptures designed by foreign artists. Lisa proposed to create stone furniture for people to use under the large shade trees throughout the city and waterfront areas. The stone sitting units will be installed in groups in shady spots around Xiamen as needed. Lisa stressed that the inhabitation of free public zones can humanize the daily life of a city. The act of sitting is a performative pause from the daily grind（日常工作）. It gives leisure and play special importance in contrast to productivity. Through this project, Lisa hoped to invite residents into a dialogue about what public art is and could be.

The Music and Sea Sculpture Manifest has provided an invaluable opportunity for communication between artists and local residents. Unlike many other art events, the whole process of the manifest, from works selection to production, has been open to the public, and has been a major attraction to citizens, especially to families with young children.

The collaborative（合作的） process of the sculpture making has radically expanded art from being a form of self-expression to one of collective consciousness. Undoubtedly, Sea and Music Sculpture Manifest will continue to provide the catalyst（催化剂） that the city and its people have been expecting. The organizers hold a confident view that a second sculpture manifest in two years will bring about even more attention from professionals and the public. It is no exaggeration that according to such a healthy trend, sculpture could even become a third symbol of Xiamen, following sea and music.